Lawrence student’s team finishes fourth in geography World Championship

Stefan Petrovic, Lawrence, captures the moment during a sightseeing trip to the Muir Woods, 11 miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge in the San Francisco Bay area. Petrovic, who will be an eighth-grader at South Middle School, was in the area as part of the United States team competing in the National Geographic World Championships, ending July 27, 2011.

Petrovic, who will be an eighth-grader at South Middle School, and two others equaled Australia’s combined score of 96 points during early rounds of the three-day competition, which ended Wednesday at Google’s world headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.

Petrovic said he was proud to represent the United States, but sad his team just missed the finals — a disappointment he attributed to the team having “overthought” bar graphs and charts on a written exam regarding urbanization and city growth rates.

“That’s the danger of knowing a lot,” he said, with a laugh.

In Wednesday’s finals, Russia finished first, followed by Canada and Chinese Taipei. The competition drew 17 teams from around the world.

Petrovic was chosen for the U.S. team after finishing third and winning a $10,000 college scholarship in the National Geographic Bee, a competition that started with more than 5 million students. Petrovic, whose parents are Uros and Zina Petrovic, had finished fourth in the national bee a year earlier.